Welfare Programs

As President Trump took office in Jan of 2017, approximately52.2 million(or 21.3 percent) people in the U.S. participated in major means-tested government assistance programs. In addition a record high 47.6 millionAmericans were on food stamps in 2013 going down to just over 45 million when President Trump first took office . What actions will President Trump take to reduce these staggering numbers?

8/2/17: President Donald Trump introduced a bill called The Raise Act, which included, among other things, a 5 year ban on welfare for legal immigrants coming to America.

8/30/17: The Trump administration reversed an Obama-era policy by closing loopholes that allowed states to seek waivers (exceptions) to welfare’s work requirements, saying it wants to promote employment and economic independence “as goals for every family.” The question here is why would anyone be against requiring an abled body person to work for their welfare check? Trump made the right decision.

11/25/17: President Donald Trump wants to put his stamp on the welfare system, apparently in favor of a more restrictive policy. He says “people are taking advantage of the system.”

​1/5/18: That the number of participants on food stamps, dropped to 42,182,443 for fiscal 2017 – a decline of 2,036,920 from the fiscal 2016 total of 44,219,363.

​1/11/18: The Trump administration announced that states (for the first time in half a century) can move toward imposing work or job training requirements on people as a condition for obtaining health insurance under the Medicaid government program. In short, this new policy will eliminate the decades of massive fraud in Medicaid where millions of abled body people are fraudulently receiving Medicaid benefits. Two states have implemented this new rule so far.

​3/21/18: The results of a multi-agency, undercover investigation found massive food stamp fraud from 2012 to 2017 in Jacksonville, FL alone. More than 22,000 fraudulent transactions involving $3.7 million in taxpayer money.

​4/10/18: President Donald Trump signed an executive order promoting work requirementsfor people who use government benefit programs such as Medicaid, food stamps, and housing aid. Why is this the right decision? Simple.....reducing able-bodied adults enrolled in the system will help to ensurethat the single mother who truly needs public assistance can get to the front of the line when “life” inevitably happens.

​4/16/18: More than half a million people dropped off the food stamp rolls in a single month.

7/3/18: The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) spent a total of $4 billion on improper food stamp payments to those receiving benefits through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).

9/17/18: The number of people on food stamps has declined for eight straight months.

12/22/18: The Trump administration unveiled a plan to force hundreds of thousands more Americans to hold jobs if they want to keep receiving food stamps, pursuing through executive powers what it could not achieve in Congress.

2/25/19: The most recent data on the number of food stamp households had also reached historic lows not seen since June 2010 when enrollment in the nation’s food stamp program was at 19,143,572.